May 01, 2003

A pleasant surprise in iTunes 4

And no, I don't mean the green icon either.

Like most of the rest of the Mac world, I upgraded from iTunes 3 to iTunes 4, and installed Quicktime 6.2. I wanted the new AAC encoding stuff, as I'm always up for higher quality (all my MP3s are ripped at 160Kbit) since I like music, and the point of ripping the CDs is so I can have the music handy while not endangering the discs. (I've certainly trashed enough CDs over the years) Being able to buy tracks was a nice bonus as well, though one I don't expect to use for a while. (They don't have the Dudley Moore and Peter Cook sketch "The Frog and Peach" online. I checked. Though they do have Monty Python, and "The Galaxy Song" beckons)

Not too surprising, since if it's something I like and on CD odds are I've bought it already, which leaves all the stuff that hasn't made it to CD yet, and probably not up on the Apple Music site. Though they are encoding straight from the master tapes, or so they say, so some of the good old stuff may make it up. If they could build up a good catalog of early Jazz and Blues stuff, well, that'd be damn cool. And a good thing, since the old magnetic tapes aren't getting any better with age--while MP3 and AAC are both lossy encoding mechanisms, flaking oxide coating has them both beat for loss.

Anyway, while iTunes has been made a touch uglier (No, I didn't think a brushed metal app could look any worse either, but there you go) its sound output seems better. I'm listening to a playlist full of lower-quality MP3s, and darned if they don't sound better than they did with iTunes 3. Might just be me, or the really good coffee today, but it's definitely nice.